It is common in business and civic life for sizable groups of people to attend meetings, seminars, and conferences. Such groups often convene in large multipurpose rooms, such as halls, hotels, or convention centers. Mass seating is typically provided with foldable or stackable chairs having metallic legs.
Many people attending such events become thirsty at some point, and attendees are likely to bring cups of coffee, juice, or other drinks to their seats. Unfortunately, there is rarely a convenient place to place a full beverage cup, and an attendee faces a problem when she must put her cup down in order to take notes or to peruse reading material. One option is to put the cup on the floor, but too often the cup gets kicked over and at least some of the liquid spills out, potentially creating a mess and perhaps making the floor dangerously slippery. Another option is to put the cup down on an empty seat. But empty seats are rarely available and, anyhow, a cup sitting on a seat is still vulnerable to tipping over. Needless to say, spilled drinks and the stains, mess, hazards and clean-up problems that they present have become a bane of business and civic meetings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,726 (the "'726 Patent"), issued to the present inventor on Oct. 8, 1991, discloses an apparatus to enable the average metal-legged, foldable or stackable chair to hold a lightweight communion cup at religious services. The apparatus includes an angle support provided with a pair of magnetic blocks to attach the apparatus to a metal chair leg. A holding ring is attached to the angle support, and serves to support the communion cup in an upright position.
While the invention that the '726 Patent discloses has proven highly successful for communion cups, a potential problem could arise if the invention were to be adapted for holding standard-sized drink cups. Specifically, a standard-sized cup filled with liquid is considerably heavier than a communion cup, and small or weak magnets could have trouble holding the apparatus to the chair leg when a passer-by bumps into the chair or the apparatus. The apparatus could disengage from the chair leg, thereby allowing the drink cup to tumble to the floor. Thus, even the invention of the '726 Patent with all of its many advantages may not fully address the drink-holding needs of business and civic meetings.